Saskatchewan: Becoming a Canadian citizen isn't the end of the journey for Saskatoon Ahmadi man

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Ahmed tried to find volunteer activities to be involved in on weekends and in the evenings because he was impressed by what his Canadian friends were doing to help others.

Times of Ahmad | News Watch | US Desk
Source/Credit: Saskatoon StarPhoenix
By Thia James | January 8, 2018

Rashid Ahmed wished he would become a Canadian citizen this year, during Canada 150 celebrations — and he did.

On Dec. 12, the 28-year-old took the oath of citizenship alongside 96 others in Saskatoon.

“It was (an) overwhelming feeling because one thing is that my real family was not able to make it to the ceremony because of their work, but my Canadian family was there to support me,” he said in an interview at his home in late December.

Ahmed is one of the 78,032 people who took the oath of citizenship from Jan.1 to Sept. 30, 2017 in Canada, and the 2,999 new Canadians who called Saskatchewan their home during the same time, according to the latest numbers from the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. Final figures for the whole year are not yet available.

According to the IRCC’s figures, new Canadians have come here from countries in all parts of the world, but they’ve mainly come from China, India and the Philippines. This year, new Canadians were welcomed in special Canada 150 citizenship ceremonies, including the University of Saskatchewan’s first citizenship ceremony.

Ahmed, a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, came to Canada from Pakistan. He saw photos and movies that featured Canada, but it was the ringing endorsement that he heard spoken by a leader in the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community: I pray Canada becomes the whole world and the whole world becomes Canada.

Those words impressed Ahmed.

He came to the province via the Saskatchewan Immigrant Nominee Program; his uncle was already living in Saskatoon. Ahmed says he was excited to come to Canada and arrived in November 2012. He was greeted by mounds of snow — a shock to Ahmed, who was used to Pakistan’s warm climate.

While work and school kept him busy — he worked full time and was studying full-time at the University of Saskatchewan in the human resources program — Ahmed found it hard to make friends, at first.

But, he says, whenever he moves to a new place, he tries to integrate and make friends. The reason he calls his friends “family” is that when he came to Canada he had a lot of support, but when his family members joined him, he was still in school, so it was hard for him to help them. His friends offered support and to help.

“They did a lot for me, which I cannot give them back (in) return, but I try to do a lot of volunteer activities and try to be involved in the community because the experience and the help which my Canadian friends provide(d) me is overwhelming and personally, I was not thinking that it can be happen, but they actually make it happen,” Ahmed says.

Ahmed had left his parents, sister and brother in Pakistan when he came to Canada. In Pakistan, he says the Ahmadiyya community to which his family belongs faces persecution. Ahmadis are a religious minority in Pakistan, and because of an ordinance passed in 1984, they’re not allowed to call themselves Muslim or refer to their faith as part of Islam.

Ahmed’s brother was actively involved in the student union and community activities, Ahmed says. His brother was threatened over it and one day, “a lot” of people went to the family home with arms to try to kill his brother, Ahmed says.

Ahmed told his family to move to Canada. His parents and sister live in Saskatoon with him and his brother now lives in Dubai.

“It was a really hard feeling at that time because I was living alone here and my family was there,” he says.

“So it was a lot of stress at that time for me to overcome because I was in school, final exams were going on. Thankfully, they arrived in Canada, which is heaven on Earth or paradise on Earth, so I’m glad they made it safely here.”

He completed his degree in human resources and has been working with the Government of Saskatchewan in administrative support for the last four years. In school, he was involved with activities at the university, as well as Run for the Cure and the Feed the Homeless campaign. He has also helped to raise food for the Saskatoon Food Bank.

Ahmed tried to find volunteer activities to be involved in on weekends and in the evenings because he was impressed by what his Canadian friends were doing to help others.

“I decided to give back to the community.”

He received the Vera Pezer Award for Student Enhancement for Volunteerism for the 2016-2017 school year.

But there is one connection that was key to his feeling like Saskatoon is home.

Ahmed went to what was then the Aboriginal Student Centre at the U of S, interested in meeting someone within the Indigenous community. He met David Pratt, who is now the vice-chief of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations. He says Pratt was very welcoming and showed him around the student centre and introduced him to others at the centre.

“That was, I think, first interaction, first impression is always good,” he says.

Pratt recalls that Ahmed was involved with the Ahmadiyya Muslim students’ association at the U of S and did a lot of work to create partnerships.

“We interacted quite well over the years and still stay in touch,” he said.

Pratt said it’s vitally important for new Canadians and Indigenous people to connect in this time of reconciliation because of the demographic shift that is going to take place in the province in the coming years.

“When we look at the exploding birth rate among Indigenous people, we’re expected to be 30 to 35 per cent of the population by 2050. As we have more immigrants, new Canadians coming into Saskatchewan, I think it’s really important that we build that relationship as treaty partners moving forward so we can collaborate and build together moving forward into the future,” he added.

For Ahmed, Saskatoon is now home and it would be hard to move away from here. He said he tells his friends they have spoiled him too much.

He repeats the phrase first spoken by the imam, and says: “We support diversity, inclusion, you know, like, always taking care of our different cultures and Canada is most famous by its multiculturalism too. So, I can do my cultural things living in Canada too.”


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